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[Deto]

It ALWAYS sounds so damn lame ass to say that 'I know this because I've done this and that', but...   The 3Dwarf Visualizar rocks! Its brilliant!  

[Anti-Paragon]

The thought of Dwarf Fortress with graphics that rival Bioshock or Crysis amuses me greatly. Perhaps with some greater real-world physics and the like. I don't care if the FPS tracker would need a  x10^-3!

On a less silly note, I wouldn't mind if you had to play Dwarf fort in ascii and the screenshots you took were super-realistic. I know the game doesn't need the graphics, but hey, it's a novelty I would enjoy if it were available.

To make this post poorly on topic. I'll see if the new version of the visualizer will run my big ol' map properly, since the last one couldn't.

[sinoth]

quote:Originally posted by Anti-Paragon:
<STRONG>I'll see if the new version of the visualizer will run my big ol' map properly, since the last one couldn't.</STRONG>

Will have a new version out in the next few days that has improved memory management, as well as greatly improved loading times.

As far as the triangle estimate goes, the engine very easily hits 150k.  It doesn't seem like it, but since each tile is capable of 10 polys, and each layer of a 4x4 map has ~36k tiles in it.... adds up VERY quickly.  I feel that the current engine is almost pushed to it's limits, especially since I'm about to add flow rendering and the poly count will increase further.

For those who are curious, I'm using display lists to speed things up, and ultimately the entire scene gets shoved into one large display list and sent to the card.  Ideally, the entire list is stored on the video card's memory (if there is enough), so there really isn't much optimization to do other than LOD, and the engine isn't built for that.

I'll put out another release or two to address issues everyone has brought up, and possibly add door/object rendering in the future when the memory hackers reverse engineer all that information.  Other than that, I'm content with this program as more of an overview visualizer that doesn't get into fine detail.

I think my next project will be a visualizer that DOES get into more detail (1st person dwarf mode, prettier landscape, better looking water and trees, LOD).  The focus will be more along the lines of Anti-Paragon's idea... nice screenshots  

I'm new to the realm of 3D programming, so if any wizards out there feel like helping I'll gladly accept it.

[Deto]

Sinoth, I meant 150 000 tris drawn at the sametime to the screen. If you can get openGL only bother with visible tris, then it'll be able to handle waaaaay more. And also, considering the 3Dwarf Visualizer probably won't be using physics, great deal of shaders, special maps and so on... I doubt you'll be hitting the limit soon  

Now, as the visualizer is 'static' (as in not for gaming), you could, if you haven't already figured it out (and gotten it work), try to build some sort of automatic welding of polygons. Sort of... you've got two land squares next to each other, as they all have six faces (like a square!  

[Symmetry]

quote:Originally posted by Mithaldu:
[QB]remember how you can dig through shit? means constantly checking each tile for changes and rebuilding affected blocks when something happened. additionally there's liquids, buildings and all kinds of other nice stuff that change the representation. LOTS of cpu work, UNLESS it's directly integrated into the game mechanics, and well ... as mentioned, we don't want toady working on that.    But can't you snoop the job list for dig jobs rather than the entire map constantly for changes?  Rebuilding the graphics shouldn't take long at all.  I know it does at the moment, but it shouldn't.  Rebuilding one local change should take less time than rebuilding the whole thing.

Deto, where do you get 150K from?  I thought a lot more was possible now  if you make the vertex shader very simple.

[Nilocy]

There is one problem with being 3D and going mainstream... which certificate rating would they give DF? Atm, its one of the most violent and horrific games i know! It amazing for that, but you have to think of the children! (well, not really) but i doubt DF would get a good reception with any parent

[Deto]

Symmetry:

From ~1-2 year old game art book   But yeah, I'm talking about average at the sametime, with shaders, with all types of maps, and with LOD mesh. As in distant objects count for less. 150k triangles drawn at the sametime, visible on the screen. Of course if you drop out shaders and maps, you can handle much more triangles with ease. Its not like its something you HAVE to have, just a suggestion for environment artists on the book.

Sure, engines can draw more, but there's a limit where things start to look bad for requirements. Think Crysis.

[Quintin Stone]

This is brilliant!  Unfortunately, mine keeps crashing just as the 3rd progress bar is just about to reach the end with no error dialog.    I tried twice.  The app just closes and vanishes from the task manager.

The stderr.txt file is empty.  stdout.txt contains the following:

code:

Error in config file!mapName: region3
mapWidth: 24
mapHeight: 18
mapLayers: 24
done second memory assigning
until END OF FILE...
0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - END OF FILE
ramps: (maplayers: 24) ramps changed: 0
File opened, loading into memory...
starting displaylist.. done.
starting displaylistup.. done.
starting displaylisttop.. done.
starting displaylistnoz.. done.
XMAX: 193, YMAX: 13, ZMAX: 145
Made it to loadMithaldu()
Not 

This is a 33g map and I'm using the updated map_extract.pl file.  I also noticed that this saved the map info in the "prog" folder and not in the "save" folder.  My map didn't show up in the map list until I copied the two files into the "save" folder.  I'm going to fiddle with the options and try again.

[ December 28, 2007: Message edited by: Quintin Stone ]

[Nate879]

Please put the updated map_extract.pl into the regular download so people don't have to update it themselves.

[Quintin Stone]

I turned off details, skybox, and bigtextures and it loaded!  I'm trying again with details on now.  It seems to draw a lot of sandy texture... this is loam or sandy loam, I'm assuming, since this region has very little real sand on it.

I'm now running with details on, but I'm still not seeing bridges or fortifications.  These are among the things not-yet implemented, right?

[sinoth]

quote:Originally posted by Quintin Stone:
<STRONG>I turned off details, skybox, and bigtextures and it loaded!  I'm trying again with details on now.  It seems to draw a lot of sandy texture... this is loam or sandy loam, I'm assuming, since this region has very little real sand on it.

I'm now running with details on, but I'm still not seeing bridges or fortifications.  These are among the things not-yet implemented, right?</STRONG>

Fortifications will display in the next version, but I'm not sure about bridges.  Also, I think I've found an error with crashing when the game uses too much system memory.  How much memory does your computer/video card have?

[Quintin Stone]

2GB system memory, video card was a 128MB Radeon 9700.  It ran fine with large textures and skybox off, while lighting and details were on.

[sinoth]

v03 is out.  This version uses MUCH less memory, and has extremely decreased loading times.  There are two major changes to the config.txt, namely an option to specify your starting mode (slice, normal, etc) and an option for height scaling.  This means you can now make cliffs taller.  Also, flows are now in, so you should be able to see moats and waterfalls and such.

Download: 3dwarf_03.zip

CHANGELOG v3:
* reduced memory usage
* reduced loading time
* added initial mode to config file (see prog\config.txt for details)
* added height scale factor to config file (see prog\config.txt for details)
* added flows
* crash on huge maps fixed (maybe!)
* numerous fixes for missing textures/tiles/etc
* fixed keyboard mapping for slice layers

Of course, screenshot goodness:

Reignwall waterfall, by Jackard

Talkedguild, by Mark Layer

RockRaptor, by Lacero

[Anti-Paragon]

Glee. I finally got my large map working! It was fun to see the rooms first hand and all the little stairways leading everywhere. I can't wait to see what you add next!

[Default Settings]

Amazing work, this literally adds another dimension to dwarf fortress.